Oscar jumped up, smashing the keyboard with a clang. “Marty . . . sir, I—”

Dad raised his hand, silencing him. “What were you playing?”

“It . . .” Oscar glanced at me. I froze, just as thrown. “It was what I’ve been working on. The start of this piece. I’ve been trying to . . . Ruby’s been helping me . . .”

I slunk off the bench, arms crossed tight, wondering when Dad was going to look at me.

But his shock had already cleared. He was shaking his head. Clapping slowly. Crossing the room with his arm extended to draw Oscar in.

“This is remarkable. This is . . . This needs to be . . .” Dad ran a hand through his white hair, then his beard, waking himself up the way he did first thing in the morning. Then he snapped his fingers and pointed. “There’s a general meeting tomorrow. We’ll have donors there, alums, Nora, Bill. I want you to come. Play this for them.”

“It’s fifty bars . . .”

Dad was leading Oscar to the front door. “It’s the start. It’s more than a start, you’ve cracked it, kid. You get some sleep now.” He opened the door and eased Oscar out. “You’ll need to be your usual charming self tomorrow. Don’t worry about anything.”

Oscar looked over his shoulder at me, but I couldn’t read the expression in his eyes. The door shut behind him.

I waited for Dad to look at me, but he was staring at Mom’s piano like she was sitting there. When he turned to me, his eyes were so pained that I took a step back.

“You look like . . .” he started, but swallowed hard, like he was tasting poison.

I dropped my hands, watching.

“I remember when you first sat at that piano.” He motioned vaguely, the height of my shoulders. “You were so little. Just . . . tiny.”

He turned slowly, sleepwalking back upstairs, lost in his own thoughts again.

And I stayed below, staring at Mom’s Steinway, trapped in mine.

12.

sunshine blasted my eyes when I opened them.

Flat daylight.

I leaped from bed and into running gear.

Jules was sitting on her stoop texting when I got to her house, but her splotchy skin and mussed hair told me she’d already finished her run. She glanced up at me blankly, then snorted. “Two hours late? Really.”

“I slept in!”

“I gathered that.”

“I can’t believe it. I’ve never needed an alarm clock. I always wake up at six—”

“You don’t need to give me the rundown.” She stood, pocketing her phone. “Shit happens.”

“I was up in the middle of the night with Oscar and I think it threw everything off.”

“Oscar? The genius guy? The one you hate?”

“I don’t hate him. I . . .” I swallowed. “Really don’t hate him.”